I was reading Nouwen the other day and felt a great burden fall from my shoulders, like Bunyon's lead at the foot of the cross.
I have been chewing on Nouwen's small book (lit. booklet) Out of Solitude. In the first devotional thought he talks about how we offer care and cures to those who are hurting and in need. To my great relief I understood providing care is not predicated on giving the right answers to life's hard questions, dilemmas and confusion. This would be offering a cure, but not seeking to care for people. Nouwen contrasted trying to cure poeple with the value of just being with people in their need. I would put it this way, "In the chaos of life, presence is more welcomed than solutions."
Nouwen makes the point that many great thinkers, philosophers and theologians have addressed (acknowledged) the pain, sadness and bleakness of life without trying to offer any answers them. If they did not have answers to offer, feel the need to reveal any cures they had or did think it was useful to share their homemade remdies, why should I. Its not that I don't want to, but its that I don't have to. This was a hugh releif to me to now that Nouwen and others didn't have all the answers.
Being a "fixer" I want to make everything better. I want to resolve conflicts, heal wounds and stop pain. But apparently, what is needed, what is more valuable is not to resolve conflicts, heal wounds and stop pain, but to walk with people as they go through the valley of the shadow of death.
A traveling partner is more reassuring than a know-it-all.
1 comment:
Thanks for this great blog.
As a mother-to-be I'd love to learn about life with my precious child on my own and feel HEAVY with the weight of expectations people have on mothers. I mean, even people who don't have kids feel like they know how children should be raised.
I look forward to this journey and the growth I will experience from my successes and stumbles. I find I hold tighter to those people who are there beside me cheering 'You can do this! God gave you what it takes! I'm here if you need me! Is there anything I can do to help you?'
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